


Daily Struggles

by EudociaCovert



Series: The Best Path: Prompt Fills [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:47:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24067591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EudociaCovert/pseuds/EudociaCovert
Summary: In which Zuko nearly blows his cover several times through his absolute inability to do basic household tasks.Prompt fill!
Relationships: Jet & Zuko (Avatar), Longshot & Zuko (Avatar), Smellerbee & Zuko
Series: The Best Path: Prompt Fills [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1736206
Comments: 34
Kudos: 301
Collections: The Best Path: 5th Anniversary Prompt Party!





	Daily Struggles

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [QueenOfTheQuill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfTheQuill/pseuds/QueenOfTheQuill) in the [TBPpromptparty](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TBPpromptparty) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Zuko absolutely failing at basic chores that most people would know how to do and the Freedom Fighters trying to subtly correct him (or loudly exclaiming about "what do you mean you've never PATCHED CLOTHES before?").

Jet thinks it’s a trauma thing, at first. He’s had kids like that before, who shied away from anything having to do with open flame.

He understands, of course he understands. He knows how to ease kids into it, how to explain through words and action that the sickness is in the nation, that the fire itself is just a weapon. It doesn’t matter if he believes it or not. It just matters that it works, that they can sleep close enough to stay safe on cold nights, can stand to eat cooked meat again.

But Blue isn’t actually like that. Sometimes things play across his face when he looks at fire, dark feelings, soured longing, heavy guilt, but that happens to all of them. If anything he’s bolder than he should be, walking a bit too close, or leaning in a bit too far, like he’s daring the flame to touch him. Jet understands that too.

What he doesn’t understand is how anyone could be this awful at using spark rocks.

“They’re bad rocks.” Blue announces.

They aren’t bad rocks. They’re perfectly good rocks. Jet has used them. Smellerbee has used them. Longshot has used them. They work exactly the way they’re supposed to right up until they find themselves clutched in Blue’s puzzlingly awkward hands.

Jet glances at Blue without turning his head towards him, just a movement of the eyes. Blue bristles, shoulders climbing up to his ears. “They’re just _bad rocks_.”

Jet hums, noncommittal. “Maybe if you watched me do it one more time.”

“I’m not a _child_ ,” Blue snarls, frustrated.

But he doesn’t chuck the rocks as hard as he can into the desert, so. Progress.

\--

Smellerbee never expected job offers to inspire this much suspicion.

“Why?” Blue demands, eyes narrowed like he’s looking for a trap.

(He’s chosen another name now, but in the privacy of her own head she still calls his Blue. He was Blue during all the important parts; when he went from Jet’s newest dangerous fixation to the person who carried her on his back up a cliff with a busted wrist so they could save her friends.)

“Because that’s the job?” It isn’t a glamorous one, but they aren’t being picky right now. Anything that pays and is mostly legal is acceptable. Besides, Blue’s definitely done worse jobs with them. Scowling the whole time, but he’s done them. This shouldn’t be tripping him up.

He squints at her harder, then nods. “Do we, uh. Need dirt?”

She blinks. Ever so often she’s hit with the strange feeling that Blue is having a very different conversation with the Freedom Fighters than they are with him. This is one of those times. “What? What do you mean?”

His shoulders come up, defensive. “I assumed-”

She blinks again. And then, slowly, begins to grin. “Wait, did you think we got hired to pour dirt all over the inside of some lady’s house?”

“You said she wanted us to dust,” He mumbles. His ears are turning a bit red, and he isn’t meeting her eyes. “I thought that would involve, you know, _dust_.”

She presses her lips together, tight. No laughing Smellerbee, not when he’s actually embarrassed. “Why would anyone want more dust in their house?”

“I don’t know!” Blue throws his hands up in exasperation, then crosses his arms over his chest, still not looking at her. “This is the _Earth Kingdom._ I thought it was like, a blessing! Or a superstition.”

She keeps it together until he heads off to find Jet and Longshot for lunch. Then she laughs until her stomach hurts.

After she’s washed the tears off her face and the giggles have stopped she tucks _doesn’t know what dusting is_ carefully away in the back of her mind with other things she knows about Blue, like _early riser_ and _you’re his first friend_.

\--

Longshot looks at Shi’s ( _Zuko’s_ ) face.

Then at Shi’s ( _The Blue Spirit’s_ ) white knuckled grip.

Back at Shi’s ( _he protected Smellerbee_ ) pinched expression.

Down at the bristles, already bent out of shape by Shi’s ( _he’s a_ _firebender_ ) feet.

Longshot reaches out and carefully extracts the broom from his hands and points the prince to a nearby chair.

Sometimes doing nothing is the best option for everyone.


End file.
